Being a successful General Manager requires a diverse set of competencies that involve both people skills as well as process skills. Let’s examine these competencies.
Competencies: Results Orientation, Strategic Orientation, Developing Others, Impact and Influence, Team Leadership, Customer focus, Business Acumen, Problem Solving.
Results Orientation
- Give me examples of what goals you have had and what you did to exceed these goals.
- How does your performance rate versus others and why?
- In business it is important to be bottom-line oriented. What is your understanding of the bottom-line and what projects have you been involved with that had a bottom-line responsibility. What was your actual role in these projects.
- How do you ensure that both yourself and people around you deliver results?
- How do you ensure that you deliver results consistently?
- How do you ensure that things get done on time?
- How do you prioritize your workload in order to achieve results?
- Give me examples on how you had to overcome resistance in order to achieve results.
- In the teams you have managed what has the turnover been like – probe for concern for people, due process, ethics – in order to achieve results.
- How do you build team spirit.
Strategic Orientation
- How do you keep in touch with industry developments?
- How does your broad knowledge of the industry relate to your peers and others and why?
- What are the key issues facing the pharmaceutical and medical industry – now and in the future?
- What are the key issues facing business in general – now and in the future?
- In general terms what does strategy mean to you?
- What process do you follow to formulate strategy?
- Within your functional scope, how do you identify competitive advantages and what do you do to ensure competitive success. Give examples.
- What is your balance between strategic thinking and day-to-day execution. How do you ensure that these are balanced?
- How do you ensure that your particular strategy is aligned to the local business strategy and global strategy.
- How do you communicate strategic plans to others?
Developing Others
- How do you ensure that your direct reports have challenging and stretching tasks and assignments – give specific examples.
- How do you plan the development of your people?
- How do you ensure that development plans are carried out?
- How do you build capability within your teams?
- Once your have assigned stretching work to others how do you control it?
- How do you ensure that your people take their development seriously?
- How do you allocate stretching assignments to your people?
- Describe particular successes with people development.
- Describe instances where you wanted to develop people and they didn’t develop the way you planned.
- Whose responsibility is it to develop people within your company?
Impact and Influence
- Compared to others how do you relate to other people – why do you think this?
- Specifically how to you relate to your peers, your direct reports, others in the company, senior management?
- How would others describe you within the organization?
- How do you build rapport with others?
- How do you build constructive and effective relationships with others?
- What networks do you access?
- How do you manage conflict?
- Give me examples where you had to influence situations – what did you do, what was the result?
Team Leadership
- Give me examples where you had led teams.
- How do you create a feeling of belonging in a team?
- How do you celebrate a teams success – give specific examples.
- How do you encourage communicate within a team?
- How do you create a common team mindset?
- How do you reward teams?
- How do you build team trust?
- How would you team members describe you?
- Give me examples when your team has been under stress – what did you do?
- What is your idea of a dream team?
Customer focus
- Describe your internal and external customers.
- How do you ensure that you are meeting their needs and expectations?
- How do you obtain first-hand customer information and use it to improve services – give examples.
- How do you establish effective relationships with customers?
- How would customers describe you and why?
- How do you stay close to customers?
- How do you deal with difficult customers – describe specific experiences.
- How do you seek out new customers?
- What is your process for dealing with customer criticisms, complaints – describe specific examples.
Business Acumen
- Describe the fundamentals of how business’ work.
- How do you stay in touch with broader business developments in the industry?
- What business courses have been on?
- What business books have you read?
- What business books are you currently reading?
- How would others describe your business knowledge?
- What are the fundamental drivers for success in the local industry?
Problem Solving
- What is your process for solving problems?
- How do you ensure that this approach will result in an effective solution?
- Give me specific examples of problems you needed to solve? What did you do and what was the outcome.
- If you can’t solve a particular problem what do you do?
- Give me examples when you have sort the help of others in problem solving.